Years of pioneering work make Brazil the model for reintroduction of jaguars
Xamã is a year old. In August 2022, the jaguar cub was found all by himself, extremely malnourished and feeble, on private land in the municipality of Sinop, in Brazil’s…
Articles by Suzana Camargo
Brazilian journalist who started her career as a news editor at Globo TV Network. Suzana has lived in Zurich, London and she is now in Washington D.C. From all these places she has written articles to many publications back in her country. For the last decade her focus is on sustainability and environment. She is the co-founder of Conexão Planeta, a website in Portuguese.
Study attempts to foresee the future of Amazonian mammals if the rainforest turns into savanna
If increasing global warming and deforestation were to transform Amazonia into an irreversibly degraded dry savanna, what could happen to the approximately 300 species of mammals that live there? These…
Multinational task force aims to save colorful rainforest frogs
At a conference on herpetology — the branch of zoology studying reptiles and amphibians — at the end of the 1980s, researchers from numerous countries began to tell of disappearing…
Invisible destruction: 38% of remaining Amazon forest already degraded
When we speak about destruction of the Amazon, deforestation data are often the reference. Over the last few decades, it is the rates of clear cutting that are best documented,…
Expedition reveals the amazing nocturnal fauna in the Amazon Rainforest
The sun has set, and darkness takes over the world’s largest rainforest. Little by little, our senses become more acute. Moisture sticks to the skin and animal sounds become more…
New voyage checks in on Darwin’s species, nearly 200 years after Beagle
It was in 1859 when British naturalist Charles Darwin published the work that’s still considered the basis of evolutionary biology. With On the Origin of Species, he introduced the scientific…
Study warns of increased poaching if road through Brazil’s Iguaçu is reopened
The Iguaçu Falls, the largest in the world, sit on the border between Brazil and Argentina and are protected by national parks in both countries. Located in Brazil’s Paraná state,…
New study offers answers for why tropical birds are more colorful
“The closer one gets to the tropics, the greater the variety of structures, graceful forms and color combinations.” Such were the words of German naturalist, geographer and explorer Alexander von…
To secure a future for wildlife, look to their distant past, study says
“Anywhere you find humans, you find the extinction of species,” says biologist Mathias Pires, a professor of biology at Campinas State University (UNICAMP) in Brazil. The near-eradication of the American…
The amazing — and unknown — diversity of insects living in the Amazon canopy
Small and often imperceptible to the human eye, insects play a vital role in the environment. “They appeared more than 400 million years before humans,” says Dalton de Souza Amorim,…
South America hosts nearly half of 9,000 tree species unknown to science
“Since I was a kid, I have always been fascinated by the diversity of living beings on our planet and I dreamed to work to explore Earth's unexplored places and…
A more potent CO2 sink than the Amazon, Brazil’s mangroves remain overlooked
Tropical forests play a fundamental role in storing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. And while the Amazon rainforest is often top of mind when it…
As temperatures rise, so does risk of kidney disease, study finds
The impacts of burning fossil fuels are not only being felt in the environment, but are also affecting human health. The most known and studied trends to date have been…
Your açaí smoothie may be destroying floodplain forests in the Amazon
Açaí has always been part of the Amazonian diet. Locals consume the round, purple fruit, which grows in bunches on the Euterpe oleracea palm tree, almost daily. In the mid-1990s,…
Fires in the Amazon have already impacted 90% of plant and animal species
New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades. Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.
Jaguar stronghold in Brazil’s Iguaçu Park threatened by road reopening plan
In mid-July this year, camera traps from the Onças do Iguaçu Project in Brazil’s Paraná state captured images of two jaguar cubs (Panthera onca). In July 2020, the network of…
In a drier Amazon, Indigenous people recalibrate their relationship with fire
Since the beginning of time, Indigenous peoples have used signals from nature to guide their way of life. Their calendar is structured by the rhythm of plant growth or rains,…
Lear’s macaws threatened by planned wind farm in Brazil, experts warn
Conservationists in Brazil have raised alarms about the impact of a wind farm being built in a region that’s the last stronghold of the endangered Lear’s macaw. French renewable energy…
Large-scale deforesters emboldened under Brazil’s Bolsonaro, data indicate
From 2009 to 2018, Brazil recorded an annual deforestation rate of 6,493 square kilometers (2,507 square miles), on the back of policies aimed at slowing the destruction of the Amazon.…
Bolsonaro govt wanted to ‘run the cattle’ through environmental protections. It was a stampede
The science journal Biological Conservation published a special issue this month with a series of reports on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on biodiversity. Among the articles selected is one by…
Threats loom large over Amazon’s Arrau turtles, despite record number of hatchlings
Countless of them were massacred over centuries, and their eggs pilfered by the hundreds of millions. Today, the Arrau turtle is a rare species conservation success story in the Brazilian…
Study reveals how species once extinct in the wild have bounced back
In 1992, global leaders gathered at a United Nations summit in Rio de Janeiro to sign the landmark Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to promote sustainable development. Eighteen years later,…
In search of the ‘forest ghost,’ South America’s cryptic giant armadillo
Since 2010, the Giant Armadillo Project has been dedicated to researching the world's largest armadillo, an animal that, despite its size and range across almost every country in South America, is one of the world’s least recognized animals.
Prosecutors target Brazil’s environment minister over dismantling of protections
Censorship, persecution, and dismissals of supervisors have become the norm in Brazil’s environmental agencies since Jair Bolsonaro took office. Now, prosecutors are seeking the dismissal of his environment minister, Ricardo Salles, alleging "countless initiatives that violate the duty to protect the environment."
Spix’s macaw returns to Brazil, but is overshadowed by controversy
Twenty years after the species was officially declared extinct in nature, 52 Spix's macaws (Cyanopsitta spixii) arrived in Brazil’s Bahia state for eventual reintroduction back into their native habitat.
Special series
Forest Trackers
- License to Log: Cambodian military facilitates logging on Koh Kong Krao and across the Cardamoms
- Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
- As tourism booms in India’s Western Ghats, habitat loss pushes endangered frogs to the edge
Oceans
- A Southeast Asian marine biodiversity hotspot is also a wildlife trafficking hotbed
- Experts, activists unite to blast Indonesia’s U-turn on sea sand exports
- As one Indian Ocean tuna stock faces collapse, nations scramble to save others
- Conservationists aim to save critically endangered European eels on Italy’s Po River
Amazon Conservation
- Boosted with fresh donations, Amazon Fund reboots stalled projects
- Majority of Brazil’s Congress votes to restrict Indigenous land advances
- Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Indigenous land rights key to curbing deforestation and restoring lands: Study
Land rights and extractives
- Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
- Fish deaths near Rio Tinto mine in Madagascar dredge up community grievances
- Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indigenous chief shot in head in Brazil’s ‘palm oil war’ region; crisis group launched
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- Learning to live with — and love — bears and eagles in Colombia’s cloud forest
- Africa’s land and forest restoration initiative gathers pace in Malawi
- Study shows Kenyan elephant shrew may be adapting to human disturbance, drought
- Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- Robust river governance key to restoring Mekong River vitality in face of dams
